


Look Who’s Coming to Dinner

by anamatics



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 14:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1514570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anamatics/pseuds/anamatics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(that one time Moriarty crashed the dinner party)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look Who’s Coming to Dinner

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous asked: Instead of Sherlock inviting himself to Joan's family dinner, Moriarty invites herself instead
> 
> like… before they know who she is, because that was like… way too early in S1 for Moriarty to be trollin’.
> 
> Okay, let’s go with later on.

"So you’re not bringing Sherlock?"  Her mother sounds almost disappointed. Joan resists the urge to roll her eyes.  "Why not, I thought he liked my cooking?"

"No  _ma_ , he loves it,” Joan says.  ”He’s just got other plans.”  Granted, the plans involved Ms. Hudson, Alfredo, Randy and maybe Marcus and a game that sounded wildly offensive to everyone involved, but he wasn’t about to make her stay, given that this planned dinner with her mother has been on for a while now and he’s certainly last-minuted these plans under the pretense of giving himself an evening of ‘carefully controlled experiments, Watson’.  (Joan doesn’t want to know what will happen if Marcus finds out that he’s being used as a guinea pig and high-tails it out of there before she can get sucked into anything.)

Oren and Gabrielle are visiting, and Joan hasn’t had a chance to do more than have lunch with them once this week.  They had been caught in the middle of a nearly three week long investigation involving counterfeit coins that supposedly dated back to Ancient Greece.  Ms. Hudson had been practically living at the house for the better part of a week as they tried to figure out who among their considerable list of suspects would take to killing his victims and leaving the coins on the bodies.

"They’re fakes," Sherlock had protested, fiddling with one and muttering about how it didn’t ‘feel right’ for the better part of two days before Joan pointed out, again, that this was way more Ms. Hudson’s bag than it was her’s and fuck if she knew anything that she didn’t learn in tenth grade English (and a rather unhealthy obsession with the classics in undergrad) about how to authenticate coinage that purportedly dated back that far.  

This had, naturally, led to an incredibly complex investigation, and now that it is wrapping up, Joan still isn’t entirely sure that the confession that Marcus and Sherlock got two days ago under Captain Gregson’s watchful eye is going to be enough to actually convict the guy.  She’s been sorting through the evidence in her head, trying to figure out if there’s anything that they’ve missed.  

It’s this distracted contemplation while leaning against a support pole on the packed train to Queens that has Joan distracted enough to not notice, at least at first, that she’s got an audience.  She’s pulled out her notes and is flipping through them, bumping up against the guy in the suit behind her every time the train lurches on the track.  He flashes her apologetic glances, but doesn’t pull out his earphones - Joan’s grateful, most guys in his position would be a total asshole to her, just because they can.  

She looks up then, and finds herself being openly stared at over the shoulder of an absolutely tiny (because Joan really isn’t that tall no matter how she tries to hide it) woman in a yellow rain jacket’s shoulder.

Joan’s heart hammers in her chest and she tries to figure out how long she has until the next stop, before she can walk out with the crowd of commuters and never have to see those eyes on her again.  They’ve let her out - apparently - and no one had bothered to tell Sherlock. 

Later, Joan will admit that it had been a little bizarre to see Jamie Moriarty leaning, almost casually on against the seat by the car door, a rocking in the rhythm of the train, arm curled around the hand hold, eyes never leaving Joan.  She looks so out of place in such a public setting - and while Joan has seen her in situations like this, it strikes her that there are too many variables and that someone like Moriarty wouldn’t like being so exposed. 

She goes back to her notes and chooses to ignore the fact that she’s followed on her transfer.  This train, when it does come, is considerably emptier, and when Moriarty sits down next to Joan, Joan really isn’t surprised at all.  

"They let you out," she says dully. 

"They did," Moriarty agrees and she looks almost uncomfortable for a moment before she sits back in the seat, hands hanging limply at her sides.  "You never came to see me again, Watson."

Joan lets a quiet breath of air escape her lips.  ”I was trying to take your suggestion of a year literally,” she says, because honestly, she hadn’t even thought about it aside from noticing that Sherlock has kept up his correspondence (only he doesn’t try to hide it from her now) and that the letters now come at regular biweekly intervals.  

She makes a humorless sound - maybe, not quite a laugh, and their shoulders brush against each other.  Joan freezes, feeling white hot fear lance though her.  Is this the part where Moriarty finally exacts her revenge? Is this the part where she ends up like those men who had kidnapped Kayden Fuller?  ”You’ve locked up my Greek,” is all that Moriarty says and Joan snaps her notebook shut and turns to look at her, to actually take in the sight of Moriarty in all of her carefully cultivated appearance.

If Joan didn’t know better, she would say that Moriarty was trying to blend in. She’s in jeans and a simple leather jacket, albeit an extremely nice one and her hair is caught up under the collar and it looks almost like it was a mistake, and not casually affected nonchalance.  ”I wasn’t aware we had to clear our investigations with you.”

"Well, a warning would have been nice," and fuck if she doesn’t sound put-out about the whole thing.  Joan wants to groan out loud.  "I was in need of his services."

Joan tucks her notebook into her purse and fidgets with the strap for a moment before she turns back to look at Moriarty.  ”Then I’m glad he’s locked up,” she says and watches as Moriarty’s nostrils flare and her brow furrows almost imperceptibly.  Joan’s lips tug into a small smile, because she knows that frustrates Moriarty and almost relishes in that feeling. 

It’s dangerous to want that feeling, because it is a slippery slope.  Joan knows this, but she can’t help herself, it’s so easy to want to pull one over on Moriarty. To prove all of her stereotyping and assumptions wrong over and over again until she gets it. Joan doesn’t think she ever will.

Moriarty’s lips are thin line of annoyance, but her eyes are fixated on a point somewhere to Joan’s left.

The train rattles along its track, through tunnels and then out into late afternoon sunlight.  Joan blinks as the car is filled with light.  She swallows the questions that bubble up within her, because she knows that she should not want to know why Moriarty is here.  She’s knows it has nothing to do with the Greek.  This is a power play of some sort, is has to be, but Joan has no idea to what end, only that it’s probably going to end badly for her.

She gets to her feet before her stop and watches with thinly-veiled interest as Moriarty stares up at the train route legend for a moment before getting to her feet as well.

"Taking the train back would be faster than calling for your car," Joan points out, because it’s rush hour and the streets are a mess at this time of day.

The comment earns her a smile that has no warmth to it at all.  “Why would I want to go anywhere, Joan,” she asks, leaning in so close that she can probably feel Joan flinch at the use of her given name. “When the one person I want to see is right in front of me.”

 _Because I’m busy,_  Joan wants to say.   _Because I’m not a shiny new toy for you to play with and I want you to leave me alone._

Instead she looks down at her feet as she feels the train slow.  Moriarty, she realizes, is wearing flat shoes.  It’s odd - Joan doesn’t think she’s ever seen her do that before.  She’s seen her in boots before, yes, but they’ve always had a heel, to make her seem taller.  They’re almost the same height now, staring eye to eye.

Joan’s got her mouth open to tell her to leave, but the train’s slowing into the station and she can see Oren and Gabrielle waiting for her.  She swallows, her mouth is suddenly dry.

Moriarty is smiling broadly now, and her fingers brush against the small of Joan’s back as she follows Joan, half a step behind, off the train.

"Joanie!" Oren calls, waving.  His face is split into a wide smile and Joan is glad to see him, her heart lifts and the stress of the moment seems to vanish.  She loves Oren, and she hates that he lives so far away.  He comes forward, pulling her into a hug before she can tell him to keep his distance, because there’s evil lurking just behind her, evil who has designs on something - she’s not quite sure what.

He squeezes her shoulders when he backs away.  “You bought a friend!” he says and it’s all excited babble and Joan wants to scream at him to run while he still has the chance, before Moriarty can charm him into thinking she’s just some girl Joan happens to know.  “I was hoping you’d bring Sherlock again.”

Joan shrugs, because apparently, Moriarty is now invited to dinner. This just keeps getting better and better.  “Next best thing,” she promises and doesn’t quite manage to suppress her smile at the vaguely offended noise that comes out of Moriarty’s mouth.  “Oren, Gabrielle -” she adds, nodded to Oren’s fiancée and thinking, not for the first time, that Gabrielle is a lot like her in many ways.  “This is Jamie.”

He steps around her, offering his hand and a charming smile and Joan can see Moriarty’s eyes narrow and then the mask falls into place once more.  She takes his hand and shakes it politely.  “Nice to meet you,” she says and Joan’s a little surprised that when she speaks, it isn’t in her put-on American accent.

"Likewise," Oren says and Joan tries to keep her breathing steady.  If this is some game, maybe to get her home so that Moriarty can figure out who to kill in her family in order to hurt her the most… she feels like she’s going to be sick.  "Joan didn’t mention a friend coming along.  I mean, mom kind of assumed that Sherlock would be coming…"

"We’ve been working for three weeks straight," Joan supplies, shaking her head as he turns to look at her, "He wanted a night off and trust me, Mom already let me hear it."

"Well, you brought someone," Oren says and turns to Jamie. He smiles his usual friendly smile at her and adds, "I hope you’re prepared to be grilled over all of your life choices."

A little laugh - one that feels almost hysterical to Joan - bubbles out of Joan’s mouth and she closes her eyes and wishes, not for the first time since meeting Sherlock Holmes, for a quick and easy death.  He has introduced so much chaos into her life through his friends - his associates - his lifestyle - his insane ex.

Gabrielle starts to tell a story that Joan’s already heard second hand from an email from Oren and they all move to leave the station together.  Moriarty falls into step beside Joan and Joan waits until they’re out on the street before she hisses out of the corner of her mouth, “What the hell are you doing?”

"I’ve been asked along for dinner," Moriarty says and her smile is all teeth.  Joan bites the inside of her lip hard to keep her face straight and not falling into a scowl of annoyance. "If you want to avoid any awkwardness, I suggest you play along."

"Do not-" Joan starts, but Moriarty’s fingers wrap around her wrist and grip hard enough to bruise, cutting her off.

She leans in, eyes flashing dangerously. A warning.  “Do not push me, Watson; I have been locked up for far too long.”

"You wouldn’t -" Joan tries again, but Moriarty has laced their fingers together, calm as can be, and is almost swinging their joined hands between them.  Joan guesses her game by the way she sees Oren glance over his shoulder, eyebrows about level with his hairline.  " _Jamie_ ,” she whispers, choosing to use Moriarty’s given name and intent on making her listen to what Joan needs her to hear.  Oren is very obviously listening, which only makes this worse.  “They don’t  _know_.”

The fingers in her hand twist and just for a minute, it seems like Moriarty wants to let go.  Joan is about to breathe a sigh of relief when they simply squeeze in what Joan assumes is meant to be a reassuring way.  “I suppose that that’s about to change,” Moriarty whispers, leaning so close that their shoulders bump against each other.  It’s so oddly intimate and Joan feels sick to her stomach.

_She’d never…_

She supposes that Oren probably already knows, but if this… if this is how Moriarty intends to exact her revenge, it’s not so bad.  Her mother isn’t going to take it well at all.  And at least no one’s going to end up dead.  Disowned, yes, but certainly not dead.

"Don’t do this," Joan says and she’s not quite begging.

 _It is a cruel fate_ , Joan thinks some three blocks of distractedly paying attention to Oren and Gabrielle’s tales of their lives and supplying one or two anecdotes from her own,  _to walk knowingly into your own doom_.

Moriarty lingers at the door, taking off her shoes as Oren and Gabrielle leave them alone in the foyer to disappear off into the kitchen.  She eyes Joan, shoes in one hand and jacket in the other.  “That would be a poor game, wouldn’t it, Joan?”

"It would a cruel thing to do," Joan says, not wanting to play games.  "It isn’t…" she runs a hand distractedly through her hair and takes Moriarty’s jacket from her.  "I just didn’t think you’d resort to something so pedestrian."  She reaches into the closet for a hangar and adds, hoping that she’s guessed Moriarty’s intensions right,  "I thought better of you."

Tapping her chin, her arms half-wrapped around herself, Moriarty watches as Joan hangs up their coats.  “I suppose,” She says very quietly, “that we could just be  _friends_.” The way that she says the words implies that it’s anything but what she wants.

"For this?" Joan clarifies, because the last thing she wants to do is be friends with Moriarty.  They are not friends, she’s not even sure that Moriarty knows what friendship is.

A non-committal sound escapes Moriarty’s lips.

"Okay," Joan says, knowing that Oren’s already got ideas in his head and that Gabrielle is impossibly smart and will pick up on any outward signs of weakness. "Just… please," she isn’t begging, it’s more of a request.  Joan will destroy her; obliterate her into nothingness if she tries anything at all.  "Don’t."

Moriarty leans across the space between them and brushes a strand of hair from Joan’s eyes.  It’s a gesture that is so intimate that Joan isn’t entirely sure how to react, and stands stock still as Moriarty brushes down the places where her hair has started to frizz with all the care and precision that one would afford a lover.  “We met through Sherlock - keep the lie simple and I’ll follow your lead.”

Joan wishes that she’d just fake a pressing, previously scheduled murder to commit. She supposes, though, having just gotten out of prison, that that’s the last thing on Moriarty’s mind.  Or at least, being totally obvious about it would be.

"Why are you doing this?"  Joan asks again as they head towards her mother’s tiny kitchen and the sounds of cooking and conversation.

There’s a pause, a pleasant smile that would have seemed almost genuine if not for the dead eyes above it.  “Because, my dear Joan, I want to know you.”

Joan, somehow, very much doubts that.

 ”Oh mom,” Oren is saying when they step into the kitchen, “Joan brought a friend after all.”

"Yeah," Joan says, sweeping into the kitchen to give her mother a hug.  "Sorry about all that confusion."  She steps aside, indicating Moriarty, who is still lurking in the entrance to the tiny kitchen.  "This is Jamie, she and I… well; I suppose you could say we work together on occasion."

"Only on occasion?" her mother wants to know, but she’s already crossing the room, drying her hands on a dish towel and making nice.  Joan’s eyes half close in horror when Moriarty says something in perfect Mandarin and Oren’s eyebrows climb even higher and Joan mentally braces herself for the ‘see, even the white girl can speak it’ rant that doesn’t come.

Gabrielle lets out a low whistle and leans over, all irritating perfection.  “You guys aren’t dating, right?” she whispers.

"Definitely not," Joan replies, barely resisting the urge to shudder.

"Shame," Gabrielle hands her a stack of plates.  "She’s just about charmed your mom."

Joan wants to say that she charms everyone, that that’s her thing, but she doesn’t like the way that her mother is now chattering away with Moriarty, in a language that Joan understands well enough but cannot speak to save her life.

Gabrielle leans over and adds in an undertone, setting out forks and glasses, “And don’t worry, Joan, Oren’s known for ages.  I think he’s just a little shocked by your brazenly bringing a girl home.”

"I didn’t bring anyone home," Joan says through clenched teeth.  "I was followed - ambushed on the train."

"Riiiiight," Gabrielle drawls with a knowing wink.

Joan is pretty sure that Oren’s marrying evil incarnate.  She makes a mental note to explain this to him in very small words.  Maybe she can get Sherlock to act it out; he certainly has experience in  _that_  field.

Somehow, announcing that Jamie, her lovely friend, likes to kill people and destroy lives in her spare time - not to mention forge priceless paintings - doesn’t seem like a great idea.  Her mother will probably demand to know why Joan doesn’t follow in her footsteps if it means that she’ll learn how to speak more languages and seem all charmingly worldly.

They all end up sitting around the table and Joan dodges her mother’s questions about her love life as best she can, picking at her food and wishing that, for once, her family could be kept separate from her work.

"So how did you two meet?" Oren asks somewhere into his second glass of wine.  Joan adds him to her mental ‘to-murder-slowly’ list, right along with his evilly grinning fiancée.

Moriarty, half-hidden behind hair in her eyes and a half-raised wine glass, glances at Joan.  “Through Sherlock,” she says as though she’s already aware that they’ve all met Sherlock and that he needs no further introduction.  “He’s an old acquaintance of mine from back when he was working in London.”

Lying, Joan realizes as she starts, really shouldn’t be this easy.  “Jamie works with antiquities,” she explains.  “We needed an expert and she was in town.”

"And one thing led to another?"

"Well," Joan glances at Moriarty, "I suppose after that first aborted attempt at friendship the second time through wasn’t so bad."  She’s thinking of Kayden Fuller’s kidnapping, and how despite the fact that Moriarty was doing everything in her power to rankle Sherlock and to use her time outside of her warehouse prison to get messages to her people, they had worked well together.

Moriarty laughs.  “You cost me a lot of money, Joan, I had every right to be angry.”

It certainly hadn’t been pocket change. Joan shrugs, though, because disinterest seems to rankle Moriarty.  Oren’s watching them with curious eyes anyway and Joan’s pretty much certain that he wants to ask and Joan doesn’t think she can casually say ‘oh, a billion dollars’ without some far more serious questions being asked.

"I suppose," Joan says at length.

Her mother cuts in then, asking politely where ‘Jamie’ went to school and what she’d studied.  Joan’s read her Interpol file - as well as the NSA file that Sherlock really shouldn’t have had access to, and she’s a little surprised when Moriarty starts to talk about studying math and economics and how somehow that had translated into a career that involved those things only nominally.  She’s lying through her teeth, naturally, but it’s a frank sort of a lie that Joan can’t really stomach.  It feels like it could be real, and there’s so much  _truth_ in it, she hates it.

So afterwards, when she’s up to her elbows in soapy dishwater and Moriarty is leaning against the stove, watching her and ‘drying’ (and by drying Joan means that she’s staring at the dishtowel as though it’s going to magically start to dry things for her), her arms folded over her chest.

Her mother is wrapping up leftovers for Joan to take back to Sherlock and keeps glancing between them, eyes narrowed.

"Joanie," she says when Moriarty ducks out with a quick "loo" that almost has Joan laughing panicked, almost hysterical laughter.  "Are you and that girl involved?"  Her mother looks after Moriarty’s retreating back.  "She’s very young."

The fact that she doesn’t drop and break her mother’s forty-year old pyrex pie dish is impressive.  Joan lets her hands still in the sink and doesn’t look at her mother.

"We’re  _not_ ,” she says, probably more forcibly than she needs to. There’s so much she cannot say, will not say, about Moriarty.  Things that her mother doesn’t need to know.  “She’s Sherlock’s ex.”

Her mother makes a humming noise.  “I had wondered,” she confessed, “given how she talks about him.”  She shakes her head.  “I know you two share everything, but don’t you think a lover is a bit much?”

“ _Ma_ ,” Joan says sharply.  “We are  _not_  dating.”

"I just wish you’d settle down Joan," Her mother continues as though she hasn’t heard Joan.  "You’re your father’s daughter - always looking for something that you can never quite find."  She looks away, because Joan’s father is hardly ever spoken of anymore.  Neither is her stepfather, not any more.

Joan swallows down hot anger at the same old conversation rehashed for the millionth time.  She’d hoped, she’d desperately hoped, that Oren getting married would solve this problem, at least for a little while.  “I’m happy, mom,” she says at length.  “Isn’t that enough?”

Her mother touches her shoulder.  “I can tell by the way you talk to Jamie, Joan, you like her.”  Her mother chuckles and leans in to press a kiss to the side of Joan’s head.  “And maybe that’s what you need - a good sparring partner.  Goodness knows living with that man has done nothing for your temper.”

Closing her eyes slowly, Joan adds her mother to her mental murder list and wishes, not for the first time, for the sweet oblivion of death.

Joan, after a moment of silence, hands soaking in the soapy water to the point where she can feel her skin drying out, chances a glance over her shoulder at her mother.  Her expression is drawn, pinched into something that could be friendly, or it could be angry.  Joan’s seen that look before, she saw it the first time she told her mother that she’d started to volunteer to work with the homeless on the weekends.  “I don’t see why, Joan, he chose that life,” her mother had said in that moment.  She’d cut Joan’s resolve down to nothing with a few simple words.

"You’re…" Joan begins.  She pulls her hands from the water and moves to rinse off the pie dish.  "You’re taking this really well."

Her mother crosses her arms over her chest and looks away.  “It is not ideal,” she says at length.  Joan is tempted to try and wave it all off, like Oren’s a horrible person who’s rolling with the fact that she’d brought a friend along for dinner and milking it for all it’s worth.  This, of course, is not mentioning that her companion had essentially invited herself along for probably evil and-slash-or nefarious purposes.  “Your father is going to have a fit.”

Joan doesn’t have the heart to tell her that her father - her real father - already knows and has known for years.  There’s a huge queer element of the homeless community and Joan does as much as she can for the young kids who have faced this same conversation and have come out far worse for the wear than she is right now.  She isn’t entirely sure that she cares what the man who supposedly still loves her mother (but does not live with her) thinks of her lifestyle or choices.  “I suppose,” she says, and affects a shrug.  Leaning over, Joan picks up the dish towel and dries the pie dish free of streaks. “And if it were someone, it wouldn’t be her,” she adds, and lefts the gravity of the words settle around her mother.

The why is on her mother’s lips, confusion in her expression when Moriarty reappears, the last of the dishes from the table in her hands.  She sets them next to Joan and leans in close, mouth twisting into something that Joan cannot place.  “I’ve been called away,” she explains and Joan desperately wants to ask her whose murder is so pressing that she’s going to flee this dinner party that she’s invited herself along to before it’s done.  She says nothing, though; she has to keep up appearances, and just nods stiffly.

Her mother steps in then, takes the dishtowel from Joan.  “You two go say your goodbyes,” she says, shooing them from the kitchen.  “I’ll finish these.”

"But you cooked," Joan protests.

"Its fine, Joanie," her mother says, brandishing a wet, soapy spoon from where she’s dumped it into the sink.  "Go ahead."

They’re out by the door when Moriarty’s expression shifts from the pleasantly charming mask that she’s worn all evening back into the expression that Joan’s come to expect from her.  The disinterested eyes and the mouth that moves constantly, spitting poison and stringing together effortless lies.  Joan barely suppress the urge to shiver as Moriarty bends to lace up her boots.

"You were not notified of my release by design, Watson," Moriarty says shifting from one knee to the other, never looking down at her task as she pulls, tightens, pulls, tightens.  She knots her shoes oddly, Joan notices.  "I did not want him to know that I’d been released until I was sure that he could not come after me again."

"What changed?" Joan asks, because something obviously had.  Moriarty was a shrewd planner.

A small smile chances across Moriarty’s lips, and what’s so strange to Joan is that it’s open and it’s genuinely pleased-looking.  It’s there and gone so quickly that Joan isn’t even sure that she’s seen it at all.  She stands with her hand on the closet door.  “You’re the detective, Watson,” she says, getting to her feet. “You figure it out.”

All Joan can think of is those men, murdered effortlessly by this woman when she had so much blood that she should have been unconscious.  All she can picture is the look on Sherlock’s face when they stepped into that paint-smelling room, watching his world shatter around him.  “Leave my family out of this,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper.

Moriarty lets out a little sound that could have been a bark of laughter.  “I have no designs on your family, Watson.  They’re perfectly nice, a bit dull, but nice.  _You_ , however, you have been on my mind,” she says, and she’s reaching out, touching Joan’s arm.  Joan’s skin is crawling and her jaw is locked, hard and defiant. She will not do Moriarty the favor and flinch away.  She won’t.  “I merely want to know you, Watson.”

"I’m sure," Joan says, turning, and using the motion to dislodge Moriarty’s fingers from her arm.  She opens the closet door and gets Moriarty’s coat, fingers closing around expensive leather.  She lets her expression fall to the confusion she feels, just for an instant, before turning, forcing a polite smile back onto her face.  "Am I to expect this… _ambushing_ … more often?”  Because it didn’t hurt to be prepared.

From her pocket, Moriarty produces a business card and offers it to Joan in exchange for her jacket.  “I’d imagine, given how things are, that you will tell Sherlock of my release?”

The business card is stark white, printed on in a dark, warm grey.  It has the letter M inside a flower that Joan cannot place and a phone number with no country code that Joan can recognize on it.  She swallows, tucks the card into her pocket. “I will,” she says, and, half a second later.  “I’m not going to play your messenger.”

"I would not expect you to," Moriarty replies, tugging on her jacket.  She tugs her hair out from under the collar, watching Joan with cautious eyes. "You’ll be wanting to contact me, I’d imagine, in the coming months.  That," she points at Joan’s pocket, "is a line that will always go directly to me."

Joan’s eyes narrow.  “Why would we want to contact you, Moriarty?” she demands.  The woman probably has a PhD in being cryptic.

It earns her a shrug.  “I suppose that that would depend on the circumstances, wouldn’t it Joan?”  She leans in, squeezes Joan’s shoulder and disappears out the door without so much as a good-bye.  Joan stands there, a little stunned, wondering what the hell had just happened. She loses all track of time, staring at the closed door as Moriarty or Moriarty’s goons are about to burst back through it, guns blazing.

The sound of Oren’s voice pulls her from her reverie, an indeterminate amount of time later.  “Joan, your phone—”

"Coming," she calls.

She takes it from Oren when he holds it out to her.  It’s Sherlock, wondering when she’ll be home.  It’s already close to ten, and Joan knows she should go home soon herself.  She tells him that she’ll be back soon, that she’ll catch the train that leaves in half an hour.

Since their case is over, and there’s no sign of new work presently, Joan makes plans to meet Oren and Gabrielle the next morning in Manhattan for lunch and an “I don’t know, Joanie, let’s just see what happens,” whatever the hell that means

They’re walking back to the train station when Oren falls into step beside her.  “I didn’t think you’d ever actually tell mom that you’re,” he trails off and then adds lamely, “you know.”

"It was bound to come out eventually," Joan says, eyes half closed and wishing for this day to be over.  "I hadn’t intended for everyone to just assume that I would be dating someone like-" she mentally winces, "- _Jamie_.”

"Why not?" Oren asks.  "She seems cool - nice."

And oh, how Joan wants to say everything she knows she cannot say to Oren.  The idea of the look on his face when he knows who he willingly invited along to dinner almost makes it worth it, even if she feels sick to her stomach for even contemplating it in her sickest, most twisted fantasies.

"Bro-code," she says, because she can’t deny that Moriarty isn’t attractive.  She’s got the sort of mind that Joan secretly tells herself she’s not looking for, and she can be charming when she’s not murdering people and destroying lives.  "She’s Sherlock’s ex."

"I thought you told me his ex died…" Oren says, eyes hazy as though he’s pulling the memory out from the far reaches of his mind.  Joan supposes that three glasses of wine would do that to anyone.

He and Gabrielle exchange a look and Gabrielle nods, hands plunged in her pockets and a pensive expression on her face.  “Yeah, you told us at Christmas…”

"I -" Joan starts, but finds that she cannot think of a single thing to say.  She closes her mouth and looks towards the train station, casting curious eyes around to see if there’s a town car lurking on some curb, a second ambush of the day.

"That’s a story for another day, isn’t it?" Gabrielle asks and Joan wants to hug her.  She’s giving Joan an out, an easier explanation than the one that she’s struggling with.

"Yeah," Joan says, rubbing at the back of her neck.  "It really is."

They say their goodbyes and forty-five minutes later Joan is home and stepping around the strewn little white and black cards from Sherlock’s latest game night.  He’s sitting in the library, contemplating one of them with a pensive expression on his face.

She hangs up her coat and he glances up, a gleeful smile blossoming across his face only to vanish when he sees the look on her face.  “What’s happened?” he asks.

"They let Moriarty out."

Lines of tension, of age, suddenly crease his face and he turns, staring hard out the window.  “I’d wondered if they would.”  He tilts his head to one side, a sad smile on his lips.  “She did say to come and see her in a year.”

"She invited herself to my dinner," Joan says, and she’s finally allowing herself to be indignant about it.  "She ambushed me on the train Sherlock," Joan adds, crossing her arms and not quite holding back the childish huff that escapes her lips.

"She didn’t threaten you?" Sherlock asks, concern flashing across his face.

"Not with… harm," Joan hedges. She sucks in a breath of air.  "My mom… doesn’t know about…" she trails off because she can’t say it, not to him.  Because he’s five and he’ll make a big joke out of it.

"Ah, your dating woes," Sherlock gets to his feet. "Yes, Moriarty would see something like that, she does have eyes and you are, after all, a very attractive woman."

Joan stares at him, utterly flabbergasted.  She opens her mouth, thinks better of telling him exactly where to shove comments like that, closes her mouth and turns on her heel, stomping out of the room, Moriarty’s business card completely forgotten in her pants pocket.

It is only much later, when he comes into her room and tells her what Moriarty had said to him, the night she’d nearly died killing Kayden Fuller’s kidnappers, that Joan thinks she understands.

"She doesn’t understand how to care for people," He confesses, sitting on the end of her bed.  "And I would hypothesize that this goes back to her childhood - or at least that is what she wants us to believe."  He tilts his head to one side.  "To observe your family, one she knows to be a fundamentally sound unit… maybe she thinks it will give her insight."

"Into what?"  Joan asks.

Sherlock tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling of her bedroom, taking in the cracks in the ceiling, the way that there’s a water stain that they can’t seem to cover up with paint.  “How to be a better person, or at least how people who aren’t like her might behave in social situations.”

Joan isn’t sure that she likes that idea at all.  “I don’t want to be a guinea pig.”

He chuckles then, and reaches over to touch her knee under the blankets.  “You’ve been one since she first met you, though.  Same as I have. Unlike me, however, you chose to fight back.”  He grins.  “That makes you extraordinary, Watson.”


End file.
